Early this morning we delicately twisted the huge hunk of steel that is our ship through the narrow and twisting leads in the ice that stretched across the narrow Lemaire Channel that separates the mainland of Antarctica from Booth Island. On either side the 800 meter channel the rock rises steeply in sheer cliffs and stretched before us was a tumbling array of sea ice and floating icebergs that taunted us in our ambition of driving further south for the day.

Eventually we made it through the channel only to be stopped by an impenetrable barrier of ice. One we had assessed our chances of proceeding we submitted to the power of the ice and checked our southerly passage for a morning of exploring the ice in zodiacs. Right now my left arm (the arm I drive with) is like jelly after having spent hours at the helm pushing the zodiac in amongst the bergs to discover seals and penguins hidden in the labyrinthine maze of leads and piled up ice.